Wednesday, March 28, 2018

After a six-year absence, Addison Potts is back in Charleston to stir things up. And what better place to make her villainous return than her estranged cousin’s wedding? Only, the nuptials hit a snag when the bride doesn’t show, leaving Addison to play getaway driver for the jilted groom. A groom whose heartbreaking smile and deep, southern drawl she should not be noticing…

Elijah Montgomery Du Pont is the future mayor of Charleston. From his military career to city hall, every detail of his life has been meticulously planned. Until now. His only respite from life’s sudden upheaval is Addison, his new, improbable best friend. She makes him happy. Grounds him. And public disapproval be damned, he’s not willing to give her up. But with an election on the line and public pressure rising, Addison—and the cruel hand of fate—might not give him a choice.

I put my jacket on downstairs when I thought we were leaving, but I take it off now, simply letting it fall. “I want you in the mayor’s chair.”

His eyes stray to my pooled jacket, then tick to mine. “You what?”

“In the picture. I want you sitting in the chair.”

“Oh. Right.” He slides out the brown leather, high-back executive chair and drops into it. “What about you?”

My bravery slips. Whose wouldn’t? This powerful, gorgeous man sits before me, outlined by the city he’s been elected to run. His thighs are thicker than my waist, his sleeves caught up around his elbows. A strong man. A man of conviction who will not be seduced unless he really wants to be.

Or is driven out of his mind and can’t resist.

Before I can second-guess myself, I move between his outstretched thighs and ease myself onto his lap. “Addison.”

I send him an innocent look over my shoulder. “Yes, Captain?”

His chest rises and falls. Once. Twice. “Take the picture.”

The fact that I’m playing with fire stops psyching me out…and begins to excite me. Maybe it’s the gravel in his tone…or the big fists that come to rest on the desk. No…it’s definitely the way he presses his nose to my hair and inhales. As if I’m not going to notice. But I do. I do and it makes me braver. Makes me throb between my legs.

“The picture, Addison.”

“Sorry.” I lean across the desk where I set my purse, taking my time digging through to find my cell before pulling it out, searching for the camera app. All the while, his muscles bunch beneath me, harder and harder…and that’s when I feel it. His erection lifts under my backside, so thick and glorious, I bite my lip to stop from crying out. I want to, though. I want to sob at the proof that he’s physically attracted to me and at least I have that much.

My hands are shaking as I lift the camera, my instincts screaming at me to grind down. Elijah’s breath is pelting the back of my neck. Other than that he’s completely still, though. But when I flip the camera around to selfie mode and get my first look at his face, there isn’t a jury on the planet that would rule him unaffected. His eyes are closed, nostrils flared, mouth open against my hair. “You’ve got five seconds,” he says. “Take it, or—”

“Or what?” Elijah stands up and takes me with him, my ass pressed to his lap, feet dangling off the ground. As if I weigh nothing more than a child. It only lasts for a couple mind-blowing seconds, though, before he settles me on the ground behind his desk. His heat begins to leave me and I sense my chance slipping away, so I twist around to face him. Still mere inches away from me, he pauses with his head tipped forward, hands flexing at his sides. “We could be more than friends.” After easing myself backwards onto the desk, I snag his necktie and tug him closer, guiding his hips between my open thighs. “Just for tonight.”

His laugh is more like a rough expulsion of air, the scent of bourbon hitting me. “That’s not how things work,” he says, his palms scraping up my thighs, twisting in the hem of my dress. “Goddammit, Addison. You’re not supposed to tempt me like this.”

His eyes fasten on my mouth, seeming darker than usual. Predatory. “You felt what you did to my cock, sugar. You know the answer to that.”

Tessa Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans and laptop, driving cross-country to New York City in under four days.

Her most valuable life experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees, a Manhattan pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband, best friend and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself through Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace University at the same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the work force as a journalist followed, but romance writing continued to demand her attention.

She now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of ten years and six-year-old daughter. Although she is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of writing about people falling in love.

This YA fantasy adventure with a touch of romance is the story of what happens when an accident in the Atlantic Ocean brings a fate, no one could imagine. Follow the tour for reviews, excerpts, and enter to win a $50 Amazon gift card!

Title: Beneath

Author: Maureen A. Miller

Release Date: March 26, 2018

Publisher: Self-published

Genres: YA

Page Count: 340

Format: Print and digital

An overnight fishing trip on the Atlantic Ocean…

It was Stella Gullaksen’s final break before starting her freshman year at college. Joining her best friend, Jill, and Jill's family aboard the STARKISSED, Stella wakes to a violent storm that capsizes the boat over a hundred miles off the New Jersey shore.

As the waves haul her under Stella knows that she is going to die. Instead, an unusual current drags her deep into the underwater canyons of the Atlantic Ocean. Powerless against the raging waters, she is suddenly sucked into a ventilated cave. One by one, Jill and her family also emerge in the sunken cavern.

With only a faulty diving flashlight to keep oblivion at bay Stella and her best friend's brother, Colin, search the cave in hope of finding a way back to the surface. What they discover, however, is that they are not alone. There are other survivors in this subterranean grotto–survivors spanning decades of maritime disasters.

Will this discovery prove salvation, or have they all been condemned to the same fate? A grim finale at the bottom of the sea?

On an alliance forged by friendship and attraction, Stella and Colin battle to escape the danger that lies beneath.

Stella Gullaksen looped her arm through the tuna tower ladder. The LED spotlights cut through the storm, revealing a pool of seawater on the cockpit floor of the sport fishing boat. The brine was creeping up to her calves now. Across from her, Col, her best friend’s brother, wrapped a rope around his arm like a boa constrictor. Dark hair was pasted to his forehead and his eyes were lost in the night, but the bright red coil in his free hand was visible enough. He nodded at her and tossed it.

Stella clawed at the darkness, squinting against the blinding fusion of rain and saltwater. The rope unraveled, winding through the water, eluding her grappling hand. Finally, she latched onto it and read his encouraging nod to secure it around herself. Trembling fingers attempted the task, but another black wave smashed into the hull, cascading against her hip and nearly tossing her over. She clung to the aluminum rigging.

This was to have been a weekend fishing jaunt, a last respite before her freshman year in college. Stella’s best friend, Jill Wexler, was also a freshman at the same college. They met each other as freshmen in high school when Stella moved to Monmouth County from Pennsylvania. They were polar opposites in personality, but somehow it worked, and they had been attached at the hip since.

Jill’s parents owned the STARKISSED, a 32’ Topaz Express saltwater fishing boat. It was a tight squeeze to fit Donald and Anne Wexler, their eighteen-year-old daughter, Jill, their twenty-year-old son, Colin, along with Stella. It was only for a night, though. It took too long to reach the New Jersey underwater canyons, where yellowfin tuna fishing was at its best. They had to spend the night out at sea and were due back into port late tomorrow evening.

Inside the cockpit, she saw Don Wexler hunched over the steering wheel, smacking the radar display. His curses were loud enough to carry over the maelstrom.

“I checked with the Coast Guard. I checked the satellite. The weather was clear!”

The defense seemed lame given their current predicament. Did it matter what the weather report claimed? They were over a hundred miles off the coast of New Jersey in the center of a mean tropical storm. The fact that it was the middle of the night was just a cruel bonus.

Stella cast a frantic look at the cabin hatch now submerged under several inches of water. Jill was down there, along with her mother. Only a few moments ago Stella had been with them. When the storm struck, her stomach was the first to protest. She rushed up to the cockpit in search of air, and instead, emerged into chaos.

USA TODAY bestselling author, Maureen A. Miller worked in the software industry for fifteen years. She crawled around plant floors in a hard hat and safety glasses hooking up computers to behemoth manufacturing machines. The job required extensive travel. The best form of escapism during those lengthy airport layovers became writing.

Maureen’s first novel, WIDOW'S TALE, earned her a Golden Heart nomination in Romantic Suspense. After that she became hooked to the genre. In fact, she was so hooked she is the founder of the JUST ROMANTIC SUSPENSE website.

Recently, Maureen branched out into the Young Adult Science Fiction market with the popular BEYOND Series. To her it was still Romantic Suspense…just on another planet!

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

When a group of neighborhood women gather, wine in hand, around a fire pit where their backyards meet one Saturday night, most of them are just ecstatic to have discovered that their baby monitors reach that far. It’s a rare kid-free night, and they’re giddy with it. They drink too much, and the conversation turns personal.

By Monday morning, one of them is gone.

Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs, but no one can make sense of the disappearance. Kristin was a sociable twin mom, college administrator, and doctor’s wife who didn’t seem all that bothered by her impending divorce—and the investigation turns up more questions than answers, with her husband, Paul, at the center. For her closest neighbor, Clara, the incident triggers memories she thought she’d put behind her—and when she’s unable to extract herself from the widening circle of scrutiny, her own suspicions quickly grow. But the neighborhood’s newest addition, Izzy, is determined not to jump to any conclusions—especially since she’s dealing with a crisis of her own.

As the police investigation goes from a media circus to a cold case, the neighbors are forced to reexamine what’s going on behind their own closed doors—and to ask how well anyone really knows anyone else.

After reading Almost Missed You, I was excited to read another work by Jessica Strawser.

Not That I Could Tell had the perfect balance of emotion and suspense to keep me turning the pages.

This novel centers around three characters:

Kristin who's the soon-to-be ex-wife of a doctor. She has twins and she seems to be happy with her independence. She's someone who has always helped around the neighborhood but suddenly goes missing with her kids without an explanation.

Clara is Kristin's friend. She throws a gathering in her backyard for her female neighbors, not realizing that one of them will disappear soon after. Clara has her own secrets which she doesn't like revisiting but she won't be able to avoid it when the police come knocking on her door.

Izzy is the new addition to the Yellow Springs crowd. She's trying to overcome her broken heart while trying to avoid her sibling and her new husband.

I like the idea of Not That I Could Tell. Women gathering by a firepit, having fun, drinking a little too much alcohol and sharing personal secrets. Then, next thing you know, one of them is gone. The women in attendance all are trying to remember some piece of information to shed light on their friend's disappearance. Did they miss a clue? Did they really know the real Kristin? Is the husband the culprit?

I won't tell you the answers but I can honestly recommend this book. It was entertaining with well-developed characters who pulled all my strings and it was able to raise a couple of good points (don't wait too long to tell someone how you feel about them and listen to your instincts).

Best part, I thought the ending was just great!

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by ST. Martin's Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fans of Vampire Diaries and Twilight will be thirsting for this latest vampire addiction…

My aunt has been kidnapped by vampires, and it’s up to me to save her. Only…I had no idea vampires existed. None. Nada. I’m more of a reader than a fighter, and even though I’d been wishing to escape my boring existence in the middle of nowhere, I’d give anything to have it back now if it meant my aunt was safe.

Then there’s the vampire Sebastian, who seems slightly nicer than most of the bloodsuckers I’ve run into so far. Yes, he’s the hottest being I’ve ever come across, but there’s no way I can trust him. He swears he’s helping me get answers, but there’s more to his story. Now I’m a key pawn in a raging vampire war, and I need to pick the right ally.

But my chances of surviving this war are slim at best, when the side I choose might be the one that wants me dead the most.

Fans of Vampire Diaries and Twilight will be thirsting for this latest vampire addiction…

As soon as I read that line in the description, I knew that I had to read this book! For a former Twilight lover, this vampire romance brought me back to my middle school days in the best way. I loved being able to read a story about a brooding vampire who fell in love with a human again!

One of the most interesting things about this book was the world the author created. I really liked how the vampires were divided into different clans. These different clans had different beliefs, powers, and ways of living. I thought the divisions of the vampires added a really unique element to the story. I loved learning about the paranormal world that these vampires lived in! I cannot wait to learn more about the vampires as the series goes on.

This book was full of action and suspense, which made for a fast and entertaining novel! There were so many moments that kept me on the edge of my seat! Since there was so much action, the moments without action felt slow in comparison. Thankfully, the action scenes usually made up for the slower portions of the book.

Charlie, the main female character, was a tough and brave girl! She was a bit immature at times, but I liked how she learned from her mistakes and became a better person throughout the story. Sebastian was a bit brash and hard to warm up to. He was a very cold person, which kind of made sense for a vampire. It was really cute to see him show his soft side to Charlie as the story progressed.

The romance between Charlie and Sebastian was a slow burning romance that was a lot of fun to read. I enjoyed how their romance was a type of "enemies to lovers" romance. There were some moments that felt forced and cheesy between Charlie and Sebastian, but overall, they had good chemistry. I did think it felt a bit sudden for them to be "in love" by the end of the story, but they still had an enjoyable and cute romance! It felt very much like Twilight, which was very nostalgic and entertaining for me.

This book was definitely a fun and quick story. If you are looking for a story that you can get lost in for a few hours, then I would recommend picking up this book!

For Cassandra Davis, the F-word is fraternity—specifically Delta Tau Chi, a house on probation and on the verge of being banned from campus. Accused of offensive, sexist behavior, they have one year to clean up their act. For the DTC brothers, the F-word is feminist—the type of person who writes articles in the school paper about why they should lose their home.

With one shot at a scholarship to attend the university of her dreams, Cassie pitches a research project: to pledge Delta Tau Chi and provide proof of their misogynistic behavior. They’re frat boys. She knows exactly what to expect once she gets there. Exposing them should be a piece of cake.

But the boys of Delta Tau Chi have their own agenda, and fellow pledge Jordan Louis is certainly more than the tank top wearing “bro” Cassie expected to find. With her heart and her future tangled in the web of her own making, Cassie is forced to realize that the F-word might not be as simple as she thought after all.

I was really excited to read this book because as a feminist, this book sounded like the perfect book for me! Sadly, this book missed the mark for me. I felt like this book was having an identity crisis of sorts. In the beginning, this book felt like it was trying to be a story about teaching men about the importance of equality. However, later in the book, it felt like it was just a rom-com about a girl who was cool enough to be a bro. I was hoping this was more of a feminist book with a side of romance, but it didn't quite accomplish that. The feminist in me was so disappointed.

One big issue I had with this book was the way feminism was presented. The main character, Cassie, made it a point to describe how much of a feminist she is. The first few chapters of this book really drove home the idea Cassie was a die-hard feminist. However, I felt like Cassie wasn't actually the feminist she claimed to be. Cassie belittled other women and judged them without knowing them! She constantly would tear other women just because they were in a sorority or dressed differently than she did. Cassie would call other women catty or judge them for what they were wearing. It really annoyed me to read about Cassie judging other women in the same way she criticized men for doing!!! IT DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!!! FEMINISM ISN'T ABOUT DRAGGING OTHER WOMEN DOWN!!!

I will say that I appreciated that the author really pushed the idea that not all frat guys are bad! Throughout the story Cassie learned that not all men are sexist pigs, which was a nice lesson for Cassie to learn. It was also nice to see that Cassie did have a positive impact on some of the guys in the frat, as they did change their views on women. However, I still would have liked to see MORE of the frat guys change their minds and become more feminist. The idea of educating the frat guys about feminism and equality seemed to really fall on the back-burner early in the book, which was disappointing.

Another thing I had a hard time understanding was the acceptance of hazing. As someone who was in a sorority, it PAINED me to see hazing so normalized. I can't even fathom the idea of hazing! There was zero tolerance for hazing in the Greek life at my school, so it was hard for me to stomach all the hazing scenes. I know frat life is different, but I just didn't understand how Cassie was so accepting of the hazing? The number of hazing scenes in this book was EXCESSIVE and those moments were never really discussed in a negative way. I wish it would have been addressed how activities like forced drinking and holding someone under water is NEVER OKAY. Hazing was just brushed to the side throughout this book, and I wish Cassie would have tried to help end the hazing culture.

The characters in this book were all interesting characters. Each character felt like a very realistic portrayal of the different types of people in college. There were a lot of times when I got frustrated with the characters, but they were still all interesting overall. Also, the romance Cassie had in this story was super cute. I thought the author did a great job at developing a sweet and believable romance! I loved all the little romantic moments throughout this book!

Overall, this book just didn't do it for me. There were some positive moments in this story, but I just felt like there were too many things that didn't sit well with me that made this book less enjoyable.